Nicholas Barry

After our bumper crop of summer interns, I'm having trouble adjusting to the quieter office. The biggest thing I'm missing, though, is the energy of the intern team.

I think the energy came not only from how full the office was, but also from one intern in particular, Dao, who brought a lot of excitement to everything she did. Now that she's gone, I'm forced to think hard about how to create that level of energy for other interns, without the gift of an unusually buoyant intern around the office every day.

And I'm finding that I also need to focus some on professionalism, for two reasons: (1) In the absence of energy and excitement, some interns don't engage with the work (translation: they don't work as hard); and (2) in the absence of a sense of professionalism and hard work here in the office, it's hard to get the interns excited about the work. If they see others slacking off, they (justifiably) get the idea that it isn't important to work hard here.

So here's what I'm starting to do, as of tomorrow:

Ask interns to be on time. Because they're unpaid, I have been lenient about when interns arrive, but I'm going to start asking interns to be on time. I'll talk to interns gently about adjusting their schedules if they're not able to make it in by the time they have committed to.

Start work earlier myself. I get to work before we start, and I want to make sure I set the right example.

Wander around the office more and talk to interns about what they're working. I do this already, but I should do it more, so interns know I care what they're up to.

Put interns in teams more often. Some interns already work together on projects, but I need to make more of an effort to ask them to work together.

Encourage interns to work on team activities in our main office. We have several rooms in our office, and most of the interns work in the main office with me. Centralizing more of the activity here will allow other all the interns to benefit from each other's energy on projects.

Suggest that interns get lunch together. Some interns already get lunch together, but others are shy or haven't connected much with others in the office. Lunch is an important morale-builder!